Club News

Posted: April 11, 2012

Members of Phi Delta Kappa pose for a photo at New Dale School, which was restored by current owner Anna Lucy Moomaw. The club of educators toured former schools of the Valley during a special March meeting. (Photo by courtesy)

The Timberville Lions Club met March 29 at the Town and Country Restaurant in Broadway. Lion President Don DeLaughter convened the meeting. After the Pledge of Allegiance, Lion Kay Showalter gave the invocation.

White Cane Days are Friday and Saturday at the Food Lion in Timberville. Proceeds provide eye exams and eyeglasses to area residents.

The administrative fund that consists of money collected from dues is constantly low. No money collected from the local community is used for anything except charitable activities. A motion was approved to increase the quarterly dues by $5 for regular members and $1 for members-at-large.

The next meeting is April 19 at the Town and Country Restaurant. Social time is at 6 p.m. The meal and business meeting is at 6:30 p.m.

The Plains 4-H Club met March 6 at the Plains District Community Center. Youth were encouraged to sign up for 4H Junior Camp at Smith Mountain Lake, to attend the 4H Congress at Virginia Tech in June and to participate in the Enrichment Day Camps.

Following the business meeting, guest speaker veterinarian Justin Hill talked about his work and answered questions. Using fruit, club members then had a hands-on learning experience about how to give muscle and under- the-skin shots to animals.

On March 17, some club members went to Endless View Farm to plant trees. Those who attended learned about conservation programs and the proper way to plant a tree. More than 200 trees were planted.
There will be no meeting in April since many members need to attend a county livestock workshop on the previously scheduled meeting date. The next meeting will be May 2 at 6:30 p.m. at the Plains District Community Center.

—Christine Yankey, Reporter

The Shenandoah Valley Chapter of Phi Delta Kappa had a special meeting March 24. The theme was “The Road Trip . . . Traveling to Our Roots,” guided by retired county educators Dale MacAllister and Larry Huffman. Participants began with breakfast at Shoneys, and then set out to visit several historical schools in Rockingham County.
The first school visit was Cedar Dale School. There was a schoolhouse at this location during the Civil War. The one-room, frame building was built 1881-82 and used until it closed in 1910. Students transferred to Keezletown School. The building was repaired in the late 1970s. This schoolhouse contained honest-to-goodness blackboards—wooden boards painted black.

Next, the group traveled to Trinity School. In 1906, this two-room, brick schoolhouse was built to replace an earlier school located a mile away at Trinity Lutheran Church north of Keezletown. Trinity School closed in 1936 and its students were transferred to Keezletown.

The Athens Colored School (Longs Chapel) was next on the itinerary. This neighborhood became Athens, an African-American community following the Civil War. When the post office opened in the 1890s, it took the official name Zenda. Rockingham County always referred to the school as Athens Colored School. The earliest school here used Long’s Chapel for its classes. Harrisonburg educator Lucy Simms spent her first year of teaching here in this church. She roomed with the family of a local African American blacksmith. A new schoolhouse was built on the hill to the east in 1882. The school closed in 1925 and its students were sent to Effinger Street School in Harrisonburg.

At the New Dale School, the group saw historical items collected by owner Anna Lucy Moomaw, who restored the schoolhouse. She and her daughter answered questions and highlighted exhibits. A schoolhouse was on this location during the Civil War. The current building was built in 1874 and used until students were sent to Concord School in 1906. The building is made of concrete walls covered with a parge coating of mortar similar to stucco. Mennonites used the building for an occasional preaching location until they built a nearby church in 1881.

Next on the itinerary was the Concord School. This schoolhouse was built in the Hupp community in 1906 for $2,000. It contained three rooms with three accessory “cloak rooms” and a modern hot-air heating system. It replaced the old New Dale School previously visited on the tour, as well as the Wampler School to the west that had burned down. Concord School was used until December 1929 when it closed and its students were sent to Mayland and Timberville schools.

The final stop was the Tenth Legion School. The first known schoolhouse in the community, a one-room building, was located beside the stone Bethlehem Church. By the mid-1880s, students were taught in a two-room, two-story building. Two classrooms were on the ground floor and the upstairs was an assembly hall for school and community use. In 1912, two additional rooms were built. The current building was erected in 1921-22 for $12,000. It contained five classrooms and an auditorium. From that time until 1942, Tenth Legion was an elementary school and two-year high school. In the 1950s, the auditorium was converted into two classrooms. There was talk of building additional rooms due to overcrowding, but the county was planning to build an intermediate school at Broadway that would take seventh grade away from Tenth Legion. The school here finally closed in 1972 when the modern Plains Elementary School opened at Timberville under the leadership of the tour co-host Larry Huffman.

PDK nvites members as well as interested educators to a celebration of 40 years of supporting education in the Valley, April 16, at the Plecker Workforce Center, Blue Ridge Community College. For more information, contact shomos@brcc.edu.